Ten Years
by cougarlips
Summary: They met in 1971 and died ten years later. The evolution of Lily's and James's relationship. Canon, oneshot.


When Lily Evans first met James Potter, he was a cocky eleven year old and the first thing he did was make fun of her best friend. He grinned when she walked away with Severus Snape, a scowl on her freckled face, and he decided he would have a lot of fun with her at school.

When Lily Evans and James Potter were twelve years old, the boy teased her incessantly. Only when he was forced to go to the Hospital Wing after being on the receiving end of an unknown jinx created by her fiery temper did he quit, but rather than being deterred, James Potter declared he'd fallen in love with her, and from then on he made it a point to talk to her as often as he possibly could.

When Lily Evans was thirteen years old, she thought she would give being friendly with James Potter a try. She once joked to him in Hogsmeade that she would love to be one of the first ones to investigate the Shrieking Shack's claims. She didn't quite understand why he closed the conversation down and became so immediately defensive. He and Sirius Black had stalked away, followed by a nervous Peter Pettigrew and a forlorn Remus Lupin.

When the students turned fourteen, the animosity between Severus Snape and James Potter became tangible and Lily Evans attempted to salvage a dying friendship with her first magical friend. Hogsmeade visits were shorter, fewer, and farther between as rumors of a man so terrible no one spoke his name grew more powerful, gained more followers, and began public attacks. Lily saw how her best friend behaved among his house mates and more than once James Potter confronted him about his two-faced personality. Lily Evans didn't speak to either of them after they fought over her for at least a week.

When Lily Evans and the self-named Marauders entered their OWL year, stress ran high and loyalties were broken. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named grew ever more powerful, and his hatred of muggles and muggle-borns instilled much fear in the hearts of many students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At the peak of the year, Lily Evans severed ties from her oldest friend and began a true friendship with James Potter, and she joined the Marauders and a handful of other students who actively opposed this anti-muggle force.

When their sixth year rolled around, Lily Evans spent many nights sitting in the common room with scared and tired expressions while James Potter and Sirius Black paced with livid expressions as they thought of how they were linked with those who instigated the war. That year was slow and hard, and over the summer Lily never went out with her wand.

During their seventh year, the war was out in the open and Lily Evans fought as best she could alongside the Marauders while safely hidden inside the castle walls. She recognized someone in every obituary she read in the Daily Prophet – and in the case that she didn't recognize any names, then James Potter, Sirius Black, or Remus Lupin did. The war humbled the Marauders, especially James, and Lily looked at him with fresh eyes, no longer seeing him as the annoying eleven year old he once was.

When Lily Evans was eighteen years old, she told Professor Dumbledore she wanted to help in the war, and shortly she and the Marauders were among the youngest members of the Order of the Phoenix.

Lily Evans and James Potter married at nineteen years old, but the celebrations were cut short as the war effort doubled. The rate of their people being killed was getting to be too much – there were just too few on their side, and getting fewer by the minute. Lily put on a brave face but she was terrified for the lives of everybody she loved.

After Lily and James Potter revealed they were expecting a child at twenty years old, Albus told them with a defeated expression about Sybill Trelawney's prophesy and encouraged them go into hiding. Their baby was their glimmer of hope, but Lily Potter was terrified for him, her precious child, because she knew he would be targeted. James held Lily for many evenings as she wept for her family, and James, with puffy eyes, would press kisses to her forehead as she came closer to term, her excitement on par with her fear. Later, Lily and James would look down at little Harry Potter with smiles on their faces. He looked just like his father – except for his eyes. He had his Lily Potter's eyes.

When Lily and James Potter were twenty-one, they knew their time was up. James Potter told them to run, but there hadn't been enough time. Lily Potter wrapped herself around her tiny baby boy, tears streaming down her face as Harry reached his chubby fingers up to press his palm over one cheek, a curious frown on his face. Behind her, Harry's nursery door was thrown open and slammed into the wall, and Lily Potter begged for her son's life, already knowing her own was over.

A/N: lily and james are among my fav couples from the series, and i hate that there's so little information about how they interacted throughout their time knowing each other. yeah, we know the big picture - he was an arrogant toerag, she was friends with snape until their fifth year, and after that james cooled off enough that they began a relationship and married, and harry was a year and some months old when they were killed in 1981 - but i'm a lover of fine details, and there's 10 years worth of them knowing each other that we know so little about. i wanted this as accurate as possible from what we know from the books and pottermore, so hopefully i've managed to keep them lined up!


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